Stengs starts instead of Zechiel. All others as expected.

 

0-0 at the half. Feyenoord has bulk of possession and chances against a box-packing, rugby-tackling Utrecht squad. Best chance was a Paixao free kick that hit a post.

 

60' Utrecht score from a corner, 0-1. Against the run of play, of course.

 

65' Utrecht score on the break, 0-2. Nijhuis ignores yet another Utrecht shirt-pull which kills a Feyenoord attack.

 

Feyenoord pulled one back when Gimenez scored a PK. A Utrecht player knocked ball down in box with his elbow. I am surprised that VAR didn't support Nijhuis's no-call on that one.

1-2 end result. Let Utrecht enjoy their win. We know that once Ron Jans and his negative futbol gets into Europe, they will be cleanly and easily beaten by sides that play futbol.

 

Saw the second half. We look very vulnerable defensively when Hwang is not on. Zerrouki doesn't do much in terms of covering gaps and disrupting the opposition. I'd go as far as to call him fairly lazy when off the ball but could be that he just lacks awareness and concentration. A useless performance from him, once again. But I also think Priske should be able to organize our defensive cover in such a way it doesn't require a player like Hwang who just happens to be intelligent enough to take care of that just by virtue of being on the pitch. I'm still not convinced Priske should be allowed to continue after this season.

Utrecht does have some very good attacking players, Cathline being especially dangerous in bringing the ball into the area. Read did well against him most of the time, and I really like the guy defensively. Too bad his attacking contribution is pretty much zero. Other than that...what a hapless performance from Paixao. Slow at distributing the ball, indecisive when challenging the opposition, and couldn't really produce anything throughout the half. I don't understand why he wasn't subbed at 60. There was one really nice move where Milambo played the ball to Paixao who just should have directly played the ball through to Gimenez but for some reason he took another touch and Gimenez went offside. The big picture, for me, is that Paixao is just a very frustrating player who falls far short of his technical ability. Hadj Moussa was more useful than him but as the scoreline demonstrates, nothing special from him either.

Stengs is on a different level than the rest when it comes to distribution - passing range and vision - but somehow the result is that everyone just plays the ball to him and expects he conjures up something. That's what our game looked like anyway. Maybe it would be different if Hwang and Timber were on the pitch. One should hope, anyway.

To conclude, our forgettable season is one match closer to end.

 

Forgettable except the CL, anyway.

 

Fair enough. CL has been weird and definitely not forgettable.